Video Taping Interviews

I used the video camera to record the students responding to the question, what did you do in Electrical class today?

The students used the conversational framework that I gave them and I marked them according to this. The students individually came into my office, sat down and talked for about two minutes. I will go through the video with them on an individual basis, so that they don't get embarrassed if others see it, and point out how they could improve their response. Already, students have commented that this is the first time that they have seen themselves speaking in English and have said how beneficial it is.

The students have learnt how to say "safety strategies" if they don't know how to respond, for example, "oh, it's difficult to express myself in English, um, anyway, moving on...." and so forth. They also learnt how to move away from the topic and then move back into their narrative. Finally, the students illustrated that they could conclude their narrative by saying something like, "well, ar, that's about it, yeah." They also learnt to make eye contact, provide body language, and smile. I explained that if they provide body language, smile and make eye contact then the listener is more likely going to appear interested. (Using a video to show this to the students is really beneficial.)

All of the students did very well, with some actually moving away from their topic to branch into another topic and then skillfully manoevre their way back into their main monologue. Others need to concentrate on providing quick "safety strategies" when they fall into difficulty.

We will do this activity again and hopefully I will ask the students if I can put some of the recordings onto the blog for homestay feedback. (I'll keep you posted about this.)

Once all of the students have become proficient at framing their narrative I will add in the listener's comments and then teach about turn-taking. I plan to map the listener's comments onto the basic conversational framework using an overhead projector - any other ideas would be most welcome! This is where the fun is going to begin because this is where the conversations start to define themselves. After conversations using two people I will move into three people.

Small steps first!!